Not anti-cop

The Overland Park police chief was recently quoted as saying there is “a climate of anti-law enforcement sentiment in this country.” (Feb. 6, 1A, “Kansas law doesn’t require releasing name of officer who shot suicidal teen”)

I understand his feeling but think he fails to understand the sentiment. People are “anti” the excessive use of force and the self-defeating tendency of law enforcement agencies to protect their own rather than adequately train, discipline and, if necessary, dismiss officers who are clearly abusing their positions.

I do not understand why a very threatening team of police officers was sent in response to a possible suicide attempt when a calming agent was most needed.

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My sense of things is that police officers, and others, are far too intent on showing they’re in control and must be obeyed.

Charles Downing

Roeland Park

Bunch of wranglers

When there was bickering at his dinner table, my grandfather would growl, “Wrangle Island!” I believe this epithet applies to Congress.

Members have been wrangling for months, and we taxpayers are paying dearly for it. I think of this every day when I go to work, and every time I send in a tax payment. Then I think of the $100 million we have paid for the president’s golfing weekends.

My grandfather is turning over in his grave.

Judith L. Zillner

Merriam

Training counts

A Feb. 6 letter writer is right: There our many capable non-union shops around. Most of the owners are ex-union men. However, they have a tendency to underbid jobs and can’t get enough good help to finish them, in my experience.

I worked alongside non-union men. Once, two of them were trying to take down a 24-foot wall. It got away from them and knocked down the ladder I was on, 16 feet up.

That was the last day I worked.

There will be lots of people going in and out of the Kansas City International Airport terminal job site, and all the workers have to know what they are doing.

It will be no place to be trying to learn.

If there were two elevators side by side, and one had been installed by non-union workers, which one would you take your family on, even if there are a lot of good non-union elevator workers around?

Good help isn’t cheap, and cheap help isn’t good.

Joe Christifano

Kansas City

Experience counts

Have you ever wondered: What about being a real estate developer prepared Donald Trump to be president? What about being a Navy SEAL prepared Eric Greitens to be Missouri’s governor? What about being an All-Star second baseman prepared Frank White to be Jackson County executive?

Sadly, the answer in each case is nothing.

Perhaps being a “career politician” is not as undesirable as some would like us to believe.

Rick Witkowski

Kansas City

Offensive ad

As an older black American who greatly admired Martin Luther King Jr. and all he stood for, I’m appalled and angry that King’s words would be used, out of context, in a Super Bowl commercial to sell pickup trucks. (Feb. 6, 7A, “Dodge Ram truck ad featuring MLK speech faces backlash”)

In my mind, Dodge’s actions were terribly disrespectful to King’s legacy, and I demand an immediate apology.

It’s bad enough that black athletes are scorned and ridiculed for kneeling during the national anthem to express their displeasure about the treatment of blacks in America. Dodge’s insensitive commercial, using the words of black America’s most beloved leader to sell their trucks, is a prime example of why we kneel.

Eddie L. Clay

Grandview

Clear tactic

By now, many of you have read the Feb. 5 guest commentary by Kansas Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning. (7A, “Kansas school funding must obey rule of law”) He argues that the Kansas Department of Education violated state law for years by not following the proper formula to provide extra school transportation funding to select school districts.

A former legislator ordered that a different formula be used. It has been followed for years (maybe 40?). Suddenly, there was a legislative audit in December that discovered $45 million had been misspent.

Why wasn’t there an audit 10 years ago? Twenty years ago? Because there was not a school funding crisis and the Legislature did not have to find up to $600 million.

What is Denning trying to do? This is a classic misdirection away from the real funding issue and toward this change in formula.

Now, after all these years, he is suddenly concerned. He has been in the Legislature a long time. What was he doing before?

If you read his last paragraph, it is pretty clear what he is up to. And he is the Republican Senate majority leader.